North Carolina elected officials have a long history of protecting Second Amendment rights. As our legislators on the state and federal level work to reaffirm our Constitutional right to self-defense, it is also critical that key elected officials in positions of power, like Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, work to close current loopholes in our background check laws that make it easier for bad actors to gain access to weapons.
Our Second Amendment rights are fundamental to our freedom and safety as Americans, and since elected officials swear under oath to uphold the constitution when they are sworn into office, it is also incumbent upon them to defend our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Thankfully, most North Carolina representatives, including our home-state U.S. Senators, have an exemplary record of protecting our gun rights.
But in addition to supporting our constitutional right to self-defense, there is also a need for Congress to ensure that our communities are safe, and one clear way to do this is to close loopholes in current federal background check laws that allow for a person to sell a gun to a complete stranger without requiring a background check before the sale goes through. North Carolina already requires a person to have passed a background check before buying a handgun from anyone, but too many states lack this commonsense policy and we need key legislators like our home-state senators to fight for the safety of communities across the country.
Essentially, current federal law treats a stranger selling a gun to another stranger they met online the same as a mother or father selling a gun to their child. These two situations are obviously vastly different and should not be treated the same. Particularly since this loophole has been used in the past by those who could not pass a background check to buy firearms and wreak unimaginable damage on innocent communities.
Those who designed our original background check laws could not have imagined the current thriving online gun marketplace, where the number of gun sales has been growing steadily and is expected to continue. The major problem with online gun sales is that, if the person selling the gun is not a licensed dealer, they are not required to conduct a background check which means that it is more likely they are selling to felons and the dangerously mentally ill.
Thankfully, there are Senators on both sides of the aisle currently discussing how to best fix this loophole in our gun laws. We urge Senators Burr and Tillis to help make sure these important conversations continue.
There is an appropriate way to balance our constitutional rights with the safety of our communities by ensuring that those who have lost the right to own a weapon cannot easily access them by avoiding a background check. A simple solution is to close the stranger-to-stranger sales loophole.
With Democrats in control of the House, Senate, and White House, it would behoove Republicans to come to the table on this issue, if not to protect our communities, then to prevent a far-left gun grabbing bill from passing Congress. Additionally, the vast majority of Americans support expanding background checks - including 77% of Republicans.
There is a way that Congress can preserve and protect our Second Amendment rights while also fixing current gun laws to close loopholes. This is a difficult policy issue to tackle, but thankfully I know Senators Tillis and Burr are up to the challenge.
